ISMU has attempted to trace back the story of foreigners setting foot in Italy for the past 40 years. If 1974 counted 200 thousand foreigners, they were 300 thousands in 1979 and half a million in 1986. The number of one million is deemed to have been passed by 1995, a figure that had doubled by 2000 to reach three millions in 2005. In 2008, foreigners were four millions and the last data available indicates 4.9 million of foreigners in Italy in early 2013.
Whereas women were dominating the figures until the 1980s, the trend reversed then and counted a majority of males. After a brief period of equilibrium, today’s arrivals are marked by a slight female prevalence (53% of them vs. 47% of males).